


Silent Treatment

by Believer29



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-10-22 05:10:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17656520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Believer29/pseuds/Believer29
Summary: "The Joker was never going to stay in Arkham long. But I think he waited, and I think he did it for me. I'm a quiet, inconsequential little nobody, but he sees something a little different."Joker x Harley fic where Mister J takes his sweet time drawing in his prey, and Harleen Quinzel is the murderous psychopath in the cell opposite.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: 6-part story with an open ending. Something a little different. My Joker is mostly Heath Ledger's with a little animated series thrown in. My Harley is a subdued amalgam of Margot Robbie's and from the animated series, and my own flair thrown in. Please read and review, I am trying to improve my skills and any feedback is useful to me and kudos are welcome too. Thank you.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Simples.
> 
> Warnings: Rated M for violence and adult themes like The Dark Knight, but nothing too grisly or confronting.
> 
> "And here, we, go!"

_"And here, we, go!"_

* * *

I might very well be in love with the new cleaner, although I can't tell if it's a her or a him. He's got a perfectly sculpted ass I'd kill to have, but if he's a she, then she has very petite boobs and thick eyebrows. He never looks me in the eye, never smiles and always works quickly and efficiently. She has soft cheekbones but aquiline features, all very sexually ambiguous. I've taken to calling her Ashley.

Ashley pays special attention to the plexi-glass that lines one wall of my cell. Boy, does it shine.

I can see my reflection almost as clear as if it were a real mirror, if I'm standing in the right light. We don't get to gaze upon many mirrors. The plastic roundel stuck to the wall above my sink is peeling and we're not allowed real mirror-glass. It's too dangerous.

It's not just his commitment to a streak-free pane that gets me all excited, but Ash also uses lemon pledge. I'd know the smell anywhere because my Mama uses lemon pledge. It brings back all sorts of nostalgic feelings. They say there's a correlation between scents and strong memories, or some crap like that. I might ask my therapist about it. She's full of fun factoids and references studies with such clarity and enthusiasm it's nice to have the spotlight  _off_ me for a while. She'll talk for a good five minutes before she goes back to dissecting my brain.

When the lights flicker on, I roll over to see my reflection in the polished glass. Baby blue eyes set in a pale, tired face look back at me. Coupled with my platinum blonde hair, bloodshot eyes with dark circles beneath them and chapped lips that are cracked with dry blood in the centre – I look undead. It's frightening.

Maybe  _that's_ why there are no mirrors here. Because there's monsters in them.

Mama once told me my baby blue eyes were her whole world, so I tried to make her proud. After Daddy died, she said they reminded her of death, so…

It's been exhausting living up to her expectations.

I stand to do my morning stretches, all the while eyeballing the guards on the catwalks above. Sometimes they spit down on us. I try my best not to draw attention to myself. I'm not stupid. I know I'm at least fifteen pounds underweight, five foot nothing and unarmed, so pissing off the steroid squad – all decked out in neatly pressed uniforms, Kevlar vests with radios clipped to the collar, batons and spare mags swinging from their belts, Kel-Tec KSG shotguns in hand – no, thank you. I'm not crazy.

That's my point, by the way. I'm  _not_ crazy. Crazy people talk to themselves. Crazy people pick fights with security and get spat on. Crazy people get their privileges taken away, like a worn paperback novel, or fresh bar of soap. Crazy people piss off the cleaners and they  _don't_ get a lemony-fresh scent in their cell. And most importantly, crazy people don't get to shower first.

But I do.

I hear boots on lino and stand at the ready. Every day is exactly the same and here's how the routine goes.

In the morning the lights come on, and I get summoned to stand against the safety glass with my hands in view. I get frisked for contraband and unsafe objects, my bed is searched, and I get handed a new jumpsuit and underwear and escorted at gunpoint to the shower block. I get to go first because I'm the only girl on this level, and although the logical feminist in me argues that this is not truly reflective of equal rights, I'm willing to keep her bound and gagged because it means I get first dibs in the disinfected cubicle, and my bare feet are the first to touch the scrubbed tiles. Being in cell number nine out of ten, with cell ten is currently unoccupied, I can either go first, or last, and I'd rather go to first, instead of last in line after guys who sweat and piss themselves, who've spent the whole evening masturbating and dribbling in their jumpsuits. Ew.

I get five minutes under the water. It means there's not enough time to wash my hair properly, so I make do with what time I have. They give me a plastic disposable cup of depilation cream, which I apply to my underarms and legs, before I soap up the rest of my body and work my long tresses into a foam, rinsing it out before it feels properly clean, and applying a conditioner cream to try and tame the mess. I've been counting the seconds. With fifteen seconds to spare, I use the plastic spatula to scrape the cream off my body, washing it free from the intense chemical, and rinsing the area just as the water cuts off.

When the sound of the water jets ceases, I can hear shouting somewhere nearby. And laughing, a terrible, high pitched, throaty, spine-shivering cackle that echoes through the sublevels.

That's new.

I step out of the shower cubicle with a towel wrapped around me, and an orderly in white scrubs with emotionless eyes and a clean-cut brunette bob steps forward, holding out her hand expectantly. I hand her the cup and spatula. She turns to go, and I reach for her arm to get her attention. Click, click, thump, thump. The sound of safeties coming off rifles and boots on tiles. My fingertips barely graze her arm, but I've got black barrels in my face, ready to blow my head off. The nurse looks up at me fearfully. Her brow is furrowed, and she suddenly looks decades older, with grey streaks in her hair and crow's feet wrinkles stretch from her eyes. I wonder idly, if she would look at me with the same fear, had the guards not stepped in, assuming the worst of me.

I put my hands up in surrender and take a step back. The towel I've wrapped around myself is threatening to fall, but I don't dare reach down to secure it. I don't want to die, and I know these girls behind the tactical vests and visors are butch and trigger-happy.

"What is it, Miss Quinzel?" The nurse asks.

I move my hands slightly and look at the guards.

"Please lower your weapons," she asks, and guards comply, but not without a swift kick to the back of my knees that brings me to the cold tiled floor, along with my towel, and dignity – as if I had any when I woke up this morning.

"Freak," one of them spits.

I look up at the nurse, who regards me with a moment of pity, before she crosses her arms. "Well?"

I grab a lock of my hair and make a scissor-motion with my fingers.

"Yes, it is getting a bit long. We'll do it tomorrow before your shower, I'll make arrangements."

I give her a nod, before standing and, slowly, making my way to the vanity. There's a mirror there, and I'm positive it's not glass, but it sure looks like authentic. It's institution-level perfection and shows the world for what it really is. Fucking horrible.

That zombie looks back at me. There's dark circles beneath them and they're slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep. I brush my teeth and hair, before handing the utensils back to my nurse, who stows them in a plastic container marked 'Quinzel 0-800'.

Then, I'm dressed in a fresh off-white jumpsuit and escorted back to my cell.

Something's different.

The other guards are tense and alert.

There's blood smears and scuff marks on the floor.

And someone is laughing, but softer now, subdued.

I step back into my cell, and roll onto my bed, to try and drown out the groaning and cackling from the new neighbour across the hall.

"They finally caught the Joker," I hear Doctor Crane say monotonously from next door.

I look up to the now occupied cell ten, to give its occupant a brief appraisal, wondering if I know him at all. It's a small world, anything is possible, but alas – he doesn't look at all familiar.

He's on the floor, beaten and bloodied, arms bound in a straitjacket, and he's looking straight up at the ceiling, and  _laughing._ That's frustrating. He'd better not giggle all day and all night. It would upset Darnell, which would make Doctor Crane yell, which would irritate the psycho in number eight which means I'll get no sleep.

All I want is a little peace and quiet in my own special hell.

Is that too much to ask?

* * *

"Harleen," I hear from next door. God damn it!

It's been weeks since they moved me down to the basement and I've been blessed enough to have escaped the notice of my former psychiatrist. There is a concrete wall between us, after all. But he must have seen me on my return trip from the showers yesterday, when he, like the rest of them, had their greasy noses pressed to the safety glass, watching the Joker's arrival.

I guess I couldn't have evaded him forever, but still.

I throw my softball at the concrete wall that separates us. It's one of my few freedoms. You can't do much damage with a soft ball. It's not even an adult league softball, just the kiddie's version. It's white with pink stitching. I wish I could say it was a kindly gift from my doctor, but it's just a therapeutic tool.

"Harleen," he says again.

I throw the ball again.  _Thump._  It bounds off the wall and back into my open hands. I've been practising a while.

I don't speak. I haven't spoken to anyone in years. Not a peep. I didn't speak to him when he was my doctor, and I was his subject of study. And I won't speak to him now just because we're locked in the basement together.

"Who's your therapist now?" he asks. "Is it Wright?"

I'm feeling puckish so I try something new. I throw the ball again, twice against the wall in quick succession.  _Thump, thump._

"Is that a no?"

_Thump._

"Okay so once is yes and twice is no?"

_Thump._

"Is it Esposito?"

_Thump, thump._

"God, it's not Jeremiah Arkham, is it?"

_Thump, thump._

"Leland?"

_Thump._

Yeah, I got tired of the guessing game. I have a short attention span.

"What about you, Joker, who'd you get?"

I freeze. I thought he'd been jacketed and sedated, but thirty-six hours later, there he is, in his off-white jumpsuit. He looks so…  _human_  without his makeup. His hair is freshly washed and hangs in limp curls which he pushes back with his hands, as he stands and walks towards the glass.

"And who might you be?" he asks in a little sing-song voice.

"Doctor Jonathon Crane," he answers bluntly. "Who did they assign to you?"

"Ahhh," the Joker drawls, and a tongue flicks out to moisten his lips. "Scaaarrrreeecrow."

No response.

"You don't look so scary to me," he continues. "I'm hardly shi _iiivering_ in my boots." He glances down. "Slippers."

"You're a fascinating enigma, Joker," Crane continues unperturbed. "I worked with these vultures for years. They'll be scrambling to get inside your head. To say, 'I treated the madman known as the Joker' and write books about it."

"Is  _THAT_ what he was trying to do?" the Joker reaches for his face, running a hand over his scars thoughtfully.

"So you got Arkham, then?" Crane asks.

"I  _had_ Arkham," is his mysterious reply. "I think I'll have someone different tomorrow."

Crane chuckles. "What did you do?"

"Ah pssh," the Joker dismisses him with a nuisance wave, "poor guy can't take a joke, stormed out after minutes, I didn't even get to tell him about my scars," he looks up and smiles for effect. "But that's not the most interesting-uh… thing, is it? No, no, no,  _Scarecrow_ , the most interesting thing at the moment," he licks his lips with a light chuckle, "is the little blonde thing over there."

I've been trying to appear completely not-interesting for the last several years. Don't attract attention. Be silent. Be still. It's basically my mantra. The last time Arkham rioted, I hid unnoticed under the bed in my cell, and no one came looking for me. It's a mighty fine way for a girl to avoid a shiv or a gang raping.

I'd been cradling my ball for the last few minutes, listening intently to the conversation whilst pretending to be incredibly fascinated by the pink stitching on my softball. My eyes flick to cell ten.

He's standing there, taller than I remember him being, with dark obsidian eyes and puckered scars that run from the corners of his mouth half way along his cheeks. His head is bowed a little and he stares squarely at me, his arms reached upwards, palms planted on the surface of the glass. I can see his pinkies fingering the little holes in the glass. I know because I do it often, out of boredom. His breath comes in slow pants, creating a tiny huff of fog on the glass near his face.

"That's Harleen," Doctor Crane explains. "She has elective mutism."

" _Mute?"_  he mouths to me, mockingly. Fuck this. I grab my novel, Pride and Prejudice, worn, torn and dogeared, and head for the toilet. I don't need to use it, I just want to be away from his prying eyes. I close the lid and perch upon it, opening my book.

"Harleeeeeen," I hear him call. "Don't be boring!"

I reach beyond the privacy screen and extend my middle finger towards him, making sure it's in full view. He erupts into cacophonous laughter and I retreat back to the toilet with Jane Austen, trying my hardest to concentrate through his incessant cackling.

After a while, as I predicted, Darnell starts whimpering in cell five. Great, thanks, new guy.

It's going to be a long night.

* * *

I sit on the toilet right up until Lydia runs off with Mr. Wickham, when the dinner bell sounds. And by dinner bell, I mean guards rapping on my cell door with their nightsticks.

I retreat from my little paradise, dogear the page and place my book on the little shelf near my bed, before making my way to the window, where I stand looking out, sighing with the disappointment of monotony, and position myself for a frisking.

I look up, and the Joker, having since abandoned his pursuit of conversation with me, gets up out of his bed, to see what the commotion is in my cell. I'm basically a whore in a shop window, the way he looks at me, seeing me full frontal for the first time. The jumpsuit and slippers aren't nearly enough, I still feel naked beneath his intense gaze. It's only because he wants to kill me. Schizo in cell eight wants to rape me in every orifice and staple me to a wall. Doctor in cell seven wants to pull my brain apart, figure out how it works and publish a paper on it. It's nice to have someone who's just happy to end me with a knife – he likes knives, I heard him telling Crane about it earlier.

Before long he's mirroring my position, and I just stare blankly. I'm good with resting bitch-face, they keep asking me questions trying to figure out who I am and what makes Harleen Quinzel  _tick,_ like I'm some complex algorithm with hidden values. My perfectly functioning brain is the least complicated in the whole of Arkham, but still they keep pestering me. It's a bad joke.

I'm lost in my own little world for a moment, before he leans down, trying to catch my gaze, as I stare off into nothingness. I'm brought sharply back into the real world when my frisker gets a little  _frisky_. They usually feel around my breasts, but this new guy is getting a bit fresh, and I cringe when his gloved hands give my left nipple a playful pinch. I wriggle away from him and try to swat his filthy hands away. They must see this as a threat, because next thing they hit me with a nightstick and I'm on the floor with the barrel of a gun in my face and a heavy boot on my chest.

I look up at Mr. Groper, and he's got green eyes and the designation SL-17 on his uniform. Sub level guard number seventeen. I'll remember him. I've got a murder list, you see, of people whom I might kill if I so had the opportunity, inclination, low risk of getting shot and a fire axe on hand. He's the second person on that list in my long years here, along with the trigger-happy butch chick from the shower block.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not very ambitious.

I can't breathe. I'm a tad fragile, not as lithe as I used to be. If he pushes at all harder, I'm going to break. I feebly grab at the soles of his boot compressing my ribcage. Black spots cloud my vision and I can't… can't…

That the well-lit room is becoming darker should have been a clue. I realise far too late that I think he's trying to kill me.

He gets shouted at from the orderlies, and he releases me. I gasp and gulp in air, rolling onto my side, trying to breathe, breathe, breathe, but the air can't come quick enough. I feel cold fingers at my neck. "She's fine," someone says. Fuck you.

The Joker's crouched down to my level now, still staring from across the void between us. I don't know why. There's something in his eyes, anger? Because they didn't crush me to his satisfaction? Was it not amusing enough?

They leave me on the floor. I can see steam rising from a tray on my desk. Dinner has been served. I don't know what it is, and I have little desire to get up off the floor to find out.

They must have started with me, because next Doctor Crane in seven gets his dinner, then Darnell in five, then whoever's in cells three and one.

Then they start the other side, two, four, six, Schitzo eight, and finally the Joker.

He smiles at me and gives me a wink.

Huh? What?

I'm still on the floor, and barely paying attention, it happens all so fast that I miss most of it.

The sound of a tray hitting the floor, guards shouting, orderlies screaming, someone  _laughing._

It's all a bit of a blur, and the Joker's bleeding and sedated on the floor by the end of it.

And guard SL-17's body is being dragged from the ward, leaving a trail of blood.

* * *

The Joker spends two weeks in isolation before returning to the sub-levels. I see the door of his cell swing towards me as they open it to deposit him back inside. The outside of the door reads SL 1, Cell 10, Inmate 0-801. He's one up on me, and that's just funny in all sorts of ways.

He's in a straitjacket and mostly sedated for the following three days, but when he's finally aware enough to notice me across the hallway, I give him a smile.

He laughs, and silently, I laugh with him.


	2. Chapter 2

“So what did _Harleen_ do?” They’re talking about me again like I can’t hear them. I’m mute, not deaf. He wraps my name around his tongue like it’s a bad taste in his mouth.

“She killed nine people with a meat cleaver,” Doctor Crane replies.

Bullshit. I didn’t do that.

At least I don’t think I did. I just remember the blood, and feeling so, so numb.

He bursts into laughter, “Ho, hee haa,” he points a finger at me. “You? Little Harl _eeen?”_

I throw my softball twice at the concrete wall. _Fuck. You._

“Oh you didn’t?” Doctor Crane says, and I can practically hear the former psychiatrist in him, seething beneath the surface, and I imagine him pressed against the glass, trying futilely to catch a glimpse around the corner. But of course, our last one-sided conversation had rules. One throw means yes, twice means no. I decide to play a little game.

_Thump._

“Yes you did kill them or no you didn’t?”

_Thump. Thump. Thump._ I’m. Fucking. With you.

“What does three mean?”

_Thump._ Yes

“Yes? Three means yes?”

_Thump. Thump._ No.

“FUCK!” I hear Crane shouting, and although I didn’t push him to the edge, I likely tipped him over. “You’re never leaving here, Harleen! You know that don’t you?” He spits venomously, and he’s not Doctor Crane anymore. “You tried so hard to please Mommy, but it wasn’t enough was it? You’re pathetic, and you’re going to rot here like the REST OF US!” At the end of his little tantrum, his voice takes on a deep, ethereal growl. I don’t like Scarecrow. When I hear his unnaturally deep voice, my skin erupts into gooseflesh and I shiver as all my little hairs stand on end.

The spell breaks when Darnell starts crying and a guard from on high tells Scarecrow to knock it off, or else. I try to ignore the inane breathless muttering from next door and turn my attention back to my novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Arkham literature lacks variety, it’s one of the things I won’t miss when this place burns to the ground. Assuming it does, what do I know?

“I don’t like Harl _een,”_ Joker muses aloud. “I’m going to call you Harley.”

_Harley._ My dad used to call me that, when I was a kid. Him and his cop friends. Little Harley. Like the motorcycle. Vroom!

“Would you like that, H _ar_ ley?” he drawls, and licks his lips, dipping his head towards me waiting for an answer.

I regard him briefly. The thought of anyone using the nickname my Dad gave me is enough to make my skin crawl. I hate it. It’s in the past, why dredge up ancient history? I need a tether to those memories like a I need a baseball bat to the temple.

But somehow, hearing it come from his moist lips, with his strange, lilted tone of voice, I don’t seem to mind it as much. There’s alarm bells going off in my addled brain, that getting on a nick-name basis is a level of familiarity one shouldn’t achieve with a murderous madman like the Joker. That’s the kind of nonsense that’ll getcha killed.

I return to my book and choose to ignore him.

“Harley…”

Nope.

He hisses and begins to pace like a caged animal. “Look at me!” he growls.

I can’t explain what happens next, not in clinical terms anyhow. It’s as though those three words in that moment, I become split in two. The self-preservationist, practical, safe Harleen rolls over and hides under the blanket, to ignore the crazy guy across the hall, to be invisible. But Harley, Little Harley, she _likes_ the attention.

So Harleen went away.

But Harley looks up at him with one arched eyebrow.

“Can I call you Harley?” he asks gently, all signs of agitation melted away like they were never there in the first place. How strangely alluring his voice can be, the slow drawl of his usual contemplative conversation when he converses with Doctor Crane, the high-pitched amusement when he giggles and taunts, the angry growl that reverberates through the entire basement, and the gentle voice just now, asking me a question as though Harley could be the most important thing in the universe at this very second.

I can’t stop her, I don’t even want to, when Harley gives the bare-faced clown in cell ten a wide, toothy smile.

“Good girl,” he purrs.

_Stupid girl,_ I reply, to myself, and smile again, before returning to my book with far less interest than before.

* * *

 

Doctor Leland has promised me time in the exercise yard if I continue to exhibit good behaviour, because I’ve shown such progress since the last incident. I don’t know what incident she’s referring to and she doesn’t elaborate.

Leland is somewhat kind, as though she cares for the welfare of her patients, rather than simply trying to solve them like a puzzle for the gratification of her own intelligence and the praise of her peers.

Usually our sessions involve her asking me questions, some inane, others serious – all of which I ignore. Then we move onto the other things like flash cards and drawing pictures.

But today I bring something new to the table, much to her delight. It’s the communication novelty I adopted from my ball-throwing conversations with Crane. One tap on the table for yes. Two for no. Three for I don’t know, or I don’t understand.

I’ve never seen the Doc so pleased before, she’s trying so hard to try that shit-eating, cat that got the cream smile from her face. Like she’s part way through solving a riddle that will lead to a peer-reviewed prize-winning paper. Me? I’m just looking to secure that potential time in the exercise yard. I know a carrot dangling from a stick when I see one, but it’s been so long since this little pony got to canter around in the sun.

Some of the questions she asks are stupid, like always.

“Is blue still your favourite colour?”

“Do you still dream about gymnastics?”

Others are a bit weird.

“Do you regret killing your family?”

“Do you understand why you’re in maximum security?”

And some are completely fucking out of line.

“I heard you’ve been talking to Doctor Crane.” That’s not even a question. I tape twice for _no._

“And the Joker?”

_No._

“What about Darnell or Lorenzo?”

_No._

She sighs. “Do you want to get better, Harleen?”

_I don’t understand._

“You don’t know?”

_No._

“You don’t understand?”

_Yes._

“You don’t understand that there’s something wrong with you?”

_No._

“I can’t help you unless you understand that. Are you willing to let me help you?”

… _Yes._ Jesus, what is the right answer that will get me outside privileges?

“Good. The last thing you need is to make friends with the wrong people. You’re making progress, Harleen. I would hate to see all your hard work set back.”

Friends? Wrong people? Fuck you, lady. I glare at her.

“You don’t like them?”

I’m done with her questions today. I stare at the floor. It’s my signal that I’m finished.

She ends the session and I’m escorted back to my cell.

I get manhandled by one sweaty-palmed overweight orderly with bad breath, and the sublevel guards meet us at the elevator. Then, something happens I’m not expecting. The Joker is also there. His bored, indifferent visage lights up the moment he sees me. We end up sharing an elevator back to the basement. I’ve got two armed guards, and he’s got six. Does that make him exactly three times more dangerous than me?

“Well, hello there,” he says, leaning forward past the guard standing between us. I remain face-front but I give him a sideways glance to let him know I acknowledge him. He doesn’t like to be ignored. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?”

“No talking,” one of the guard’s grunts, gripping his nightstick.

“She wasn’t talking,” Joker replies, affronted. “She didn’t say a word, she’s _mute._ ”

I smile to the floor.

“There’s no need to be so _cruel,”_ Joker admonishes the guard with a soft, playful growl.

It’s that growl that makes me afraid of what’s going to happen next, or what he’ll do. There’s no expanse between us now, no stretch of linoleum floor, no panes of safety glass. Just one fleshy human between him and me.

I wonder what he’s going to do.

I wonder what _I’m_ going to do. Will I drop to the floor and let the guards subdue him? Will I help him fight them off? Will I stand my ground or shrink away?

It’s terrifying and thrilling at the same time.

 “You look ravishing today, Harley,” he compliments.

I can see my clouded reflection in the smooth metal doors of the elevator. I know I look like hell.

But at least my hair looks nice. I washed it this morning, had it cut to a manageable length and my new nurse, a freckled-faced ginger fresh out of nursing school had been kind enough to braid my hair today. I forget her name. Maggie? Harriet? Brenda?

I like her. Not as much as I liked the lemony-fresh cleaner who I haven’t seen in a while, but still, she seems nice. I’ll take advantage of her while I can, while she’s still too stupid to understand that I’m no less of a monster than the other maximum-security inmates, the ones she doesn’t have the clearance or training to deal with.

This elevator is too fucking slow.

If the Joker tries something in this confined space, it’s not going to be pretty, and knowing my luck I’ll be implicated in the incident regardless of my active participation, and I really, _really_ don’t want to lose my promised time in the exercise yard.

He tilts his head to one side, then the other. Cracks his neck like he’s ready for shit to go down.

_Shit, shit, shit!_

I think about asking him to play nice, but the thought of using my voice after so long makes me shiver. I feel my pulse quicken and my breath comes in short huffs. The guard between us gives me a sideways glance, stiffens, and grips his weapon a little tighter. It’s happening. The hairs on my neck stand on end, my arms are covered in gooseflesh and my hands are shaking so much that the chains linking my handcuffs begin to tinkle.

He must have heard it, because he leans forward again with an air of curiosity, and before he can do something that’ll get me killed, maimed, or worse, have my privileges taken away… his dark eyes meet mine, and I take a shaky breath. He’s about to ask me what’s got my knickers in a twist, but I cut him off.

“He-llo.”

It comes out barely a whisper, cracked and broken like everything I am, but he’s stunned, his black eyes go wide, rimmed with bloodshot white, before he plasters a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Holy shit,” one of the guards breathes. I’m feeling you, sunshine.

“Did she just-”

“Fuck me.”

“Trust the clown to-”

“Twisted freak-”

I can hear my heart thumping in my ears, and I bring my cuffed hands up to my ears to block out the voices that are echoing around me, unable stifle a whimper.

“Oi, shut up,” the guard between us commands, and the rest of them go silent. I’m grateful.

The Joker giggles gleefully behind pursed lips.

“You, too,” the guard says sternly.

The elevator comes to a halt at sublevel one, and the moment the doors open, I shuffle ahead, my guards quick to follow, but they don’t give me any shit for it. Maybe they want to escape the Joker’s vicinity as much as me.

The moment the cuffs come off, I head into my cell, drink a few cups of water, and splash my face.

Oh god, my voice. I remembered my voice, my words.

I’d been trying to avoid an incident with the Joker, and now I’ve opened a door that can’t be closed. The proverbial can of worms is open and they’ve gone everywhere, wriggling, and writhing and making a mess.

He won’t let up now.

What have I done?

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Harley,” I can hear him later that night. “I can’ _t_ slee _p.”_

Well what the fuck do you want me to do about it?

“Tell me a bedtime story?”

I’ll tell you a bedtime story, Mister J. Once upon a time, there was a girl who just wanted peace and quiet in her little slice of hell, until a giggling asshole decided to make his insomnia her problem.

The lighting in the basement isn’t as dim as I’d like, so I wear a sleep mask. Someone gave it to me a while ago, I don’t remember who, I’m just surprised they let me keep it. Maybe it was the doctor I had before Leland, because I certainly don’t get any visitors.

I’m grateful they didn’t take it away from me the last time the guards put me on the floor – which was not my fault, by the way.

Maybe I get one for good behaviour. I don’t think the Joker has qualified yet.

I make a point of ignoring him. Maybe if I breathe slowly and don’t move, he’ll think I’m asleep and give up. He tries for a good while, before he strikes up a conversation with Darnell in five. After that ends in tears, he taunts Lorenzo – the schizophrenic in cell eight. I can’t sleep with his ongoing chatter, but at least he’s distracted with someone else for the time being.

I’ve had a bad day, inconsolably anxious since speaking to him in the elevator. I couldn’t keep my dinner down, couldn’t sit still and I can still hear the guards whispering about me, although their vile gossip ceased hours ago at the shift change. _Freak. Blonde cunt. Clown’s slut. Psycho._

And now I’m just so… tired. But he won’t let up. I just want to sleep, that’s all I want.

“Harleeeeyyy,” I hear him sing from across the corridor once more. Fuck this shit. I tear off my mask and visually measure the distance between my head and the wall, and I lean back, and headbutt the wall. Hard. I cry out, stars explode in front of my eyes. Somewhere far away, I think I can hear his voice calling my name, the one he gave me, the one my daddy used to say. The dizziness seizes me, and I reach up to feel something wet on my forehead.

Darkness takes hold.

Then, silence.

God, yes.

 

* * *

 

 

I wake up, but it’s not my bed. The lights are long and square, not round and suspended like in the sublevels. I’m strapped down in a bed, and a pair of nurses are stationed nearby, taking inventory in a cupboard. I groan, and their attention is drawn to me. I’m in the infirmary.

“Good Afternoon, sugar,” one of the nurses says. She’s plump, dark skinned with cornrows in her hair. “You took a nasty bump to the head. Doctor wasn’t sure when you were gonna wake up.”

I look at the clock on the wall. It’s one of those retro wall clocks with numbers on tabs that flip over, with the day, date, and year beneath it. It reads 17.06.

That’s five in the afternoon. I slept all night and all day. Definitely worth the throbbing headache.

And because I don’t have a history of drug abuse, Doctor Leland lets the nurse add some anti-inflammatories and mild painkillers to my meds for the next few days. They’re just, so… sweet. Really.

Doctor Leland is kind enough not to rescind my upcoming time in the exercise yard, but she insists on transferring me to another ward. One with padded cells for those who self-harm.

I don’t complain. It’s quieter, the nights are darker, and I even get a little window that shines natural light inside. The first week is bliss.

But after that, it becomes… _boring._

Art therapy does little to stimulate, all I end up doing is painting lines in a jagged-curved-jagged pattern, and it’s not until my fingers get involved on the canvas that I realise they resemble Mister J’s crooked smile.

Although black’s not the right colour. It’s just the only pot that calls to me at the moment.

I’ve put on weight. My dosage gets dropped. My sessions with Leland always end with me glaring at the floor, but she’s still smiling and incredibly pleased with my progress.

Is this… sanity?

Is this what being normal feels like?

It’s clear to me now that he is counterintuitive to my mental health, if such a thing exists, but despite the clarity in my mind, I _miss him._ I miss his chilling laugh, his stupid anecdotes. When I’m near him, I become two people. Harleen is too pussy-shit to stand up for herself, and Harley is so desperate for a bit of fun she doesn’t care if it will get her killed.

I hate them both.

 

* * *

 

Today’s the day.

Today I get to go outside.

There’s two exercise yards, one for boys and one for girls, a mirror image of each other, separated by a twenty-foot mesh fence with barbed wire. There’s a half basketball court, some bench seats, pull-up bars, a small grass area, shadowed by two towers with snipers at the ready. As if they don’t trust me. As if there’s anywhere to go but back inside.

The door buzzes and swings open, thudding against the wall. The light is temporarily blinding, but thanks to the window in my room, I’ve had time to adjust to the bright world outside. I can’t imagine being confronted with this harsh reality straight from the basement.

Luckily, it’s an overcast day. If it had been bright and sunny, I might have spent the entire time traipsing around the yard with my eyes closed. Then I see it. A playground just for me. The bench seats run in a straight row in my line of sight, followed by the chin up bars and meeting the back of the basketball hoop.

Fun.

The moment the guard gives me the go-ahead, I toe my slippers off, and bolt towards the first bench, the metal bars so cold on the soles of my bare feet. Gymnastics is like riding a bike, those movements embedded deep in muscle memory, my body unable to forget the movements and the thrill of agility and the rush of air through my hair. I move into a cartwheel to jump from one bench seat to the next and the next, then balance on the balls of my feet as I leap onto the chin-up bars, walking over the metal bars like an acrobat, arms extended and fluidly moving at my sides to maintain my balance. Then I skip and break into a little run, making my way over the bars like I own them, and take one giant leap for the basketball hoop. My feet contact the hoop at the exact moment my hands reach the backboard, and triumphantly, I swing myself up and over to straddle it, lifting my face to the sky with a genuine smile.

I hear a sound then, breaking through my reverie, a slapping sound that echoes throughout the empty yard. I squint through the light to focus on my snipers, one of them is focussed on me but the other is occupied by something else in the adjacent yard. The slapping sound isn’t at all what I’d thought. It’s clapping. Two hands clapping. _His_ hands.

No fucking way. Leland wouldn’t allow this. Coincidence, then? Fortuitous circumstance, nothing more, has led the Joker to the adjacent exercise yard at the exact same scheduled time as me?

He’s stalking along the fence now, eyeballing me the whole time, coming to a halt when we’re parallel, and he looks up.

“If you don’t come down from there, Harleyy,” he starts, “They’ll think you’re attempting self-harm, and cut this _precious_ time shor _t-uh,”_ he punctuates his last word carefully.

Harleen is afraid, so I leave her behind, swinging down from the hoop and landing into a crouch to absorb the impact. Yep, still got it.

He smiles then, and extends an index finger, beckoning me to come closer. I just stare back, schooling my expression into something that I hope resembles cool and collected Harley.

“Harleyy,” he calls gently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I scoff.

“Look, I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” he grips the fence, and the tiny gaps in the anti-climb security mesh don’t even allow his fingers to slip through. “See?”

He’s right though. I could go right up face to face with him and he couldn’t do a damn thing to me. Except maybe spit in my face. I hope he doesn’t. My pulse races, and I’m not sure if it’s from fear or excitement, and I’m barely even in control as my bare feet cross the concrete floor, approaching the fence between us.

“That’s my girl.”

Oh, hell no. I am not his property. I am not a dog that comes running when he whistles.

_Fuck you,_ I think furiously at him as I halt my approach and screw up my nose. Funny thing is, up until he said what he said, was I not coming because he crooked his finger and called me over? Who’s the crazy one here? The psychopath on the other side of the fence who thinks he owns me, or the idiot on this side of the fence who’s dumb enough to listen? That’s… messed up. What a mind job!

“Oh,” he says with feigned regret, with a click of his tongue and a lick of his lips. “Do you not like me calling you that?” I’d noticed his little oral fixation before, but now it seems more like part of his personality than a symptom of… whatever’s wrong with him.

I shrug.

“That’s not a yes, but not a ‘no,’ either,” he observes.

Well spotted, Mister J.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” he asks quietly. I take another step closer, not changing my expression and I give him a little wave. He stifles a chuckle. “Not what I meant, and you know it.”

He wants me to speak to him again. Nuh-uh. Negative. Nope. I shake my head, but I don’t want to piss him off, so as a bit of a peace offering, I dare to walk a little bit closer with a brief, apologetic smile.

“Why not?” he pouts, moistening his lips once more. “Word on the ward is you have elective mutism from some traumatic incident. That you haven’t spoken a _sing_ le word to anyone in years. Not. One. Until lil’ old me comes along and you just can’t resist,” he chuckles, closing his eyes in reminiscence. “Like a little lamb couldn’t resist bleating when it wandered into the lion’s den.”

Uh, hello? I’ve been in Arkham a lot longer than you, Mister J. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me. My eyes fall to his jumpsuit, to his breast pocket is embroidered ‘Inmate 0-801’. I look down at my own, which reads 0-800.

“I was going to rough ‘em up a bit, you know,” he says then, returning his gaze to me. “You were so close but so…” he sighs, “untouchable. I would have done anything to get my hands on you.”

I raise my gaze once more to meet his eyes. For someone who just admitted he wants to strangle me, he looks far too unperturbed. Talking about inflicting pain and death with the same lacklustre attitude one might discuss the weather. It’s fucked up. But then again, that’s why we’re both here, right?

“But then, oh ho,” he chuckles, “Just when I was about to crack someone’s skull open, you opened your pretty mouth and said _hello,”_ he whispers the last part. “Talk about a distraction.”

I chuckle soundlessly then, letting my smile spread into the smuggest, shit-eating grin I can muster, and the look on his face is priceless. At first, he’s amused by my wordless little outburst, then puzzled. He seems like an intelligent guy, but it takes him a few seconds longer than I expected for the penny to drop.

He laughs, heartily and with unrestrained mirth. I both love and hate his throaty laughter – it’s like electric knife blades and warm honey at the same time. “You… you little minx,” he says between breaths. “You did that on purpose.”

Well done, genius.

“You didn’t want me to start a fight.”

I nod, still smiling.

“Oh, Harley. Harleyharleyharley, _harrrrllleee **YYY** ,” _he growls the last part of my name. “Now you know I could never hurt you. Even if there was no fence between us. I wouldn’t dream of it. You,” he laughs again. “Well, you’re just too much fun.”

His impulses give me whiplash. One moment he can’t wait to get his hands on me, the next he promises to never hurt me because I’m too much fun? The momentary silence is comfortable, while he chuckles to himself and I try to stop myself from smiling, because my cheeks are beginning to hurt.

“Come on Harley,” he takes on a more serious tone. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

I kind of want to, but I don’t like the dark places it takes me. Last time it was one word, whispered, and it was like I’d taken a drug that pushed me beyond my comfort zone and into a whole new dimension of hell, unable to discern between reality and hallucination. Hearing voices that may or may not be there, hearing them echo across the planes of existence even though the speakers have long ceased their utterances. The sleepless aftershocks of a panic attack only settled by knocking myself unconscious just for a little peace?

“Look at me,” he growls softly, and I can tell he’s frustrated. I want him to understand but… how?

I give it my best shot.

Using hand gestures from my mouth, and over my chest, a pained expression, and quick breaths, I try my hardest to explain wordlessly why I don’t talk. His eyes are soft and eager, his lips move but don’t speak and he’s following my movements carefully, _listening_ intently.

He nods when I finish.

“When you talk, it hurts,” he says, putting a hand on his chest, “Here.”

I nod.

“They call that a panic attack,” he says bluntly.

I know.

“Hmm,” is all he says.

He’s deep in thought now, surveying me with hooded eyes. In the natural light, I notice his eyes aren’t black, they’re a sort of brown colour. I wonder if anyone else has noticed that. I must have been looking up at in him with a wondrous expression, something far too intimate to be comfortable, because he gives himself a literal shake, licking his lips before the playful banter starts again.

“So when are you coming back down to my level, Harley?” he asks. “The basement just ain’t the same without you, doll.”

I shrug.

“The rest of them are dull as paint, except Doctor Crane, he’s a smart cookie and it’s fun to argue philosophical differences, but unless the Scarecrow comes out to play,” he tilts his head upwards and bites his lip thoughtfully. “It’s just no _fun.”_

I shrug again. So, you’re bored. What do you want me to do about it?

“Maybe if you’re a bit naughty they’ll put you back where you belong. You’re just a freak, after all. Like _me,”_ he adds with a friendly smile. “The man has put us together now,” he says with a little sing-song voice, in a tune that sounds familiar to me, but I can’t quite place it. “You ought to make it stick together… Come on, come on, let's stick together.”

I can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips, the pulling sensation so alien to me that I feel my dry lips begin to crack.

“There you go,” he says with a malicious glint in his eye. “You oughta smile more.” It sounds more like a command and less like an observation. “Hey, you wanna know how I got these scars?”

I giggle then, and even I’m shocked by the little noises that come up my throat. He gives me one of those smouldering looks of satisfaction, and I just know I’ve inadvertently stroked that massive ego of his, and boy it just eggs him on. He takes several steps back from the fence, setting the stage because he’s ever the perfectionist performer. I grip the fence with anticipation, and then he gives me an animated story about his probably non-existent little sister who had an accident on the high-wire at the circus. It’s the third story I’ve heard so far, but I’ve got to give him points for originality. Then at the punch line, when his little sister goes on to be a cirque de soleil performer, and he’s stuck with a permanent smile but none of the other clowns want to play – I reward him with another giggle. His eyes seem to light up when I do that, and I don’t shrink away when he approaches the fence line again.

“Harley,” he says, and I feel something cool touching my fingertips. “Take this.”

It’s a sort of crooked razor blade with funny corners, and I realise it’s a snapped-off piece from a box-cutter blade. I slip it between my fingers and look up at him curiously.

“Do something naughty and I’ll see you at dinner.”

What am I supposed to do with this? I look at him questioningly.

“Give the red-head a good scare,” he says, as though I’m a little girl being encouraged to draw daddy a picture. “All the youngsters need a harsh dose of reality. It’s best administered early in life.”

I look up from the blade between my fingertips, and in his eyes, I can see a predatory, animalistic gleam that sends a shiver down my spine. I’m not sure if it’s fear or excitement but he takes it for the former.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he presses fingers towards my face, a comforting gesture, so sweet and gentle. “If you want to come back downstairs and play, you’ll use it. And if you don’t, well,” he smacks his lips together, “then I guess I’ll know whose side you’re on.”

I’m on no one’s side, I want to tell him, because nobody’s on _my side._

“I saw what you _did,”_ he dips his head towards me, gesturing in circles with his free hand. He’s much taller than I first thought, now we’re standing face to face. I’m only 5’3” and he’s got almost a foot on me. “You little spider monkey. What’s _that_ about?”

I feel like actions say more than words, so I roll myself backwards into a handstand roundoff, and finish with a little jump, putting my hands in the air.

“You’re a gym _nast?”_ he asks, clapping twice.

I nod, stepping back towards the fence.

“So what else can you do?” he challenges, a playful grin tugging at his puckered scars.

I roll my eyes and shrug. I can do lots, but I’m not a show-dog. I don’t sit and dance on command.

“Show me,” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Come oooooon,” he goads.

I shake my head again. No.

“Don’t be,” he inhales, hissing through his discoloured teeth. “Don’t be _boring.”_

“Time’s up Joker!” a voice calls from his side.

“Come on, Harley, give me something to think about while I’m alone at night thinking of you,” he winks.

I want to say I’m disgusted. Harleen certainly would be. But Harley, well, she finds him charming and intriguing. She gets the better of me and I perform a few cartwheels for him, positively beaming as he whoops and laughs before being escorted back inside, leaving me alone in the cold.

It’s so empty now, life seems to be naught but shades of grey when he’s not around. That murdering psycho’s laughter brings colour to my little world.

And that fucking terrifies me. More than the silver shard between my fingers.

When I get escorted back to my room, my red-haired nurse is there to make sure I take my pills. Her name tag reads B. Hinchcliffe. I’m trying to remember what the B stands for. Belinda? Becky?

I might be a skinny little waif, but B doesn’t have much on me. It would be so easy.

And it is. So easy I’m not even aware I’ve already done it, springing on the kindly little nurse, pinning her down and forcing that blade down her throat.

There’s so much blood. Security arrives too late, they restrain me just as she stops convulsing, but the blood just keeps on coming.

I haven’t killed anyone before. I’m not sure I like it at all. It feels like a little piece inside of me has died, too.

The guards aren’t gentle, and I don’t wake up until the next day, once the sedatives wear off.

The first thing I do is roll over and vomit off the side of my bed. Ugh.

“Good Morning, beautiful,” I hear his voice echoing from his side of the corridor.

I want to move but find myself in a straitjacket. Fuck. I can’t even drink to wash the taste of bile from my mouth. The smell is rancid, the taste is worse, but they don’t clean it up until the shift changes later that night.

I’m treated to a meal of broth, bread, and a pudding cup before being escorted to therapy, and I get shackled to the table and the floor.

Doctor Leland comes in with none of her usual niceties. There’s rage simmering behind those big, round brown eyes. But her expression oozes disappointment.

I know what I did was wrong. The tears and sobs that come are in earnest. I want to take it back, right to the beginning, to never look him in the eye or smile at him or say hello. To never enter that exercise yard, to take that blade, to get sucked into those impossibly expressive eyes and do his bidding.

“Where did you get the blade, Harleen?”

I shake my head and tap the desk three times. _I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’m not telling you –_ take your pick.

“I’m disappointed, Harleen,” Doctor Leland says with a defeated sigh, as our session ends. “I really thought we were making headway.”

And I am so sorry, Doctor Leland. But Harleen’s not available right now.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This was a tough chapter for me, because I know those choices I've made are a little controversial, and haters hate when you make a major change to a beloved character. My Harley is quite a bit different. Having her past filled with failures, failure as a gymnast, soldier, student, daughter - all these things I figure needed to be extreme in order for Harley to end up where she did. I hope it doesn't detract too much from her unique character, and I hope it isn't too off-putting for some readers. Although I suppose if you weren't interested in a skewed version of Harley Quinn I suppose you wouldn't have made it to chapter 4, right?
> 
> Thank you to my reviewers, you are so very lovely, all of you.

Expressing remorse doesn’t seem to make a fucking difference, so I stop behaving all contrite and apologetic.

They reduce my shower privileges to twice weekly, and I don’t get any privacy in the cubicle at all. Two guards stand watching me at all times. I don’t get to go first anymore, I get last. The floor is already wet and dirty and there’s pubic hair in the drain. I don’t get fresh soap, I have to use the bar left in the soap dish. Being last behind nine men, I hope that it belongs to Mister J or Doctor Crane. Because I’m not willing to entertain the idea that it belongs to one of the other filthy, potentially diseased fuckers occupying cells one to seven.

They remove my straitjacket after the first two days.

My hands are a watercolour painting of reds and purples, from Nurse Beth’s bite marks. They gave me a shot for those. Poor Nurse Beth. She really, really didn’t want to die.

I have aches and pains all over, so when they come in to bring me my meals, check for weapons and give me a none-too gentle pat down, I don’t move a muscle. Even when they get rough, especially over my tender ribs. Mister J notices my feeble winces and the tears that follow but he doesn’t say anything about it. Either he cares little for my weakness or respects whatever tiny shreds of dignity I have not to mention it.

“I told you to cut up her face,” he finally speaks up on day three, when he’s confident no guards are within earshot, and Doctor Crane is away at therapy. “Not kill her.”

I shrug, and I sit cross-legged in front of my safety glass. He mirrors my movements, and the conversation begins.

“Did you go for the jugular?” he queries.

I put my fingers in my mouth and make a gagging motion.

“Oh, ho hee,” he laughs. “You made her swallow it? Even to me, that’s cold.”

It was a spur of the moment thing, but there’s no non-verbal way for me to communicate that, so I shrug instead. Thankfully he changes the subject, and we ‘talk’ about loads of things.

“You got family?” he asks.

No. You?

“Not anymore.”

But if he did, I doubt he’d be telling me the truth.

“Weapon of choice. Knives or guns?”

I shrug.

“Meat cleaver?”

I shake my head vehemently. No.

“What then?”

I don’t know how to explain my choices and preferences, how they’ve changed over the years. Not that I have access to weapons to do a comprehensive test, but I do remember the feeling of an assault rifle in my hands. It reminds me of my home away from home, of my other family – I’ve never felt stronger than having that weapon in my hands and my best mates at my side.

Of course, that’ll never be me again. Not since I lost my family, and especially not now that I’ve killed someone in cold blood. I’d give anything to take it all back, to go back to high school, to be the bronze-medal gymnast, third in place, underachieving, but alive.

It’s better than being classified a murderer mentally unfit to stand trial.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he interrupts my reverie.

I shake my head and smile apologetically. Then I make a handgun gesture with my hands.

“Ah,” he drawls, “I do love a girl who knows her guns. You any good?”

I think so. I nod.

“Can you shoot a man in the head from thirty yards?”

Once upon a time? Possibly. Now, years out of practice, I don’t really want to find out. But I don’t think it’s the answer he wants to hear, so I nod instead.

“I’d like to see that.”

I smile and nod, because it’s all just fun talk, and it’s never going to happen. Because Scarecrow, for all his nasty vitriol, is right. I’m going to rot down here for the rest of my days. My hope is that one day I get dementia, and when I don’t know who I am anymore, and I’m no longer capable of the awful things they’ve accused me of – I’ll get transferred to a nice high-security aged care facility with a rose garden. Pity I’m only twenty-nine.

“How old are you, Harley?”

Shit, can he read my mind.

“Twenty, twenty-one?” he queries.

I count with my fingers. Two flashes of ten and a nine.

_“Twenty-nine,”_ he mouths, and frowns. “You’re looking good on it.”

What an asshole. I know I look like hell. I might be pushing thirty, but I feel about sixty.

What about you? I gesture back to him.

“About the same. I think. I don’t remember. I’m a bit fuzzy on the past. Sometimes I remember bits and pieces one way, sometimes another. If having a past is mandatory, I’d prefer it to be multiple choice.”

I smile. That must be nice.

“Are you ever going to talk to me again?” he changes the subject.

Maybe. I never thought I’d be persuaded speak ever again. And I never thought I’d be driven mad enough to kill. Both things have happened since the Joker had arrived at Arkham.

“Would you like to?”

That catches me off guard. He has a penchant for asking the tough questions. Maybe he should be my therapist. I shrug again.

“Don’t lie to me, Harley.”

Now he sounds like my Father.

Woah.

I really do belong in therapy, don’t I?

None of it seems real. Convinced for a moment that he’s just a figment of my imagination, I watch as he becomes blurred around the edges and his voice skips like a scratched CD – _“lie to me Harl- lie to me Harl- lie to me Harl…”_

I start to pull at my hair, because it usually grounds me when things get too confusing, and he speaks again. When the words leave his mouth, everything becomes quiet and clear again – back to normal.

“I’d like it if you did.”

Mind games. Everything he says, everything he does – NO! That’s Harleen trying to distract me, trying to keep me in here.

_I’d like it if you did,_ he said.

Harley wins out in the end and I smile back at him.

“Hmm?” he prompts.

I give him a shy nod.

“Not today, though,” he surmises.

No. Not today.

He rolls his eyes and smacks his lips thoughtfully, tonguing the insides of his cheeks. I’m beginning to recognise his thought patterns. The conversation had taken a veer, teetering on the edge of seriousness and he decided suddenly that he didn’t like it, and thus, was going to change the subject.

“You know, it's funny. This reminds me of a joke,” he licks his lips and dips his head towards me, dark eyes seeking, ensuring that I’m paying attention. He doesn’t like it when I look away. “See,” he continues, “there were two guys locked in a lunatic asylum and one night...” he licks his lips again, casting his eyes to the ceiling, “one night, they decided they didn't like that any _moooore,”_ and he looks back at me again. “Not. One. Bit. They decided to escape,” he says lightly, dancing his fingers across the glass to mimic running feet. “So, they made it up to the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see rooftops, stretching across town, stretching to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across, no problem. But his friend,” he pops open his mouth with an ‘oh’ “Oh, no way, he's afraid of falling. So, the first guy has an idea. He says, "Hey, I got this flashlight with me. I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings and you can walk across the beam and join me." But the second guy says,” he stifles a laugh as he reaches his punch line. “What do you think I am, crazy? You'll just turn it off when I'm halfway across!”

This garners some laughter from next door, and I can see one of the guards on the platforms above having a chuckle. But Mister J looks at me, and me only, for my reaction. I don’t laugh, but my lips stretch into a wide grin, and I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks and I dip my head in embarrassment, a wall of pale hair falling to cover my face. A few minutes later when I recover, he’s laying casually on his bed, knees bent, one leg crossed over the other, reading a book, with the biggest, most unrelenting grin gracing his distorted features. Smug bastard.

I really, really want to wipe that smile off his face.

So later that night, while he was sleeping, I did something quite, _mad._ I stripped out of my jumpsuit, leaving me in white panties and singlet, left my slippers at my bedside, and I began to quietly twist and tear the material, knotting and weaving it into a thick rope of sorts. Then, I waited for the guards to change, before I hung it from the top of my cage, at either end, making a cradle. I’d thought about this before, how I would kill myself if I had the inclination to do so. But instead of a noose, I had created a little play gym in my cell. Then, I began to swing. I engaged my core muscles and gave them a much-needed workout, swinging myself upside down, twisting my ankles in the rope.

Little spider monkey, he called me. Yeah, sure Mister J. I’m a regular acrobat, here for your amusement.

Slowly I twist and twirl, breathing heavily with exertion. As I go, the world seems to melt around me, and I close my eyes and pretend I’m something somewhere else. Lounging in a tree like a leopard. What started as something inexplicably designed to get a reaction from someone external, I end up finding something inside that I miss, so much. My freedom. This place had once been my penance, and I had been willing to accept the punishment dished out as I broke the rules. But truth will out. This isn’t a safe haven to keep me from hurting people and myself. This is a cage to keep me contained. I can hear his words in my mind. _One night, they decided they didn’t like that anymore. Not. One. Bit._

Tonight, I rather think I’ve reached the same conclusion.

The lights flicker, bringing our basement into the morning. I can see the lights harsh, from behind my eyelids, but I ignore them, keeping my eyes closed, and once more I swing upside down, to feel the blood rush to my head, locking my legs in place as my torso falls and stretches, my long hair dangling almost all the way to the floor. I stretch my arms down, out, as far as I can reach. I could be a bird, flying over Arkham, into the Narrows, to freedom. I’d forgotten how aerial acrobatics felt just so good. So right.

Reality has a harsh way of watering down the imagination.

I crack my eyes open, and they adjust to the light. I expect the guards to come running any moment, but it seems they haven’t yet noticed what I’ve done.

But _he_ certainly has. He might have been sleeping on his cot moments ago, but now I have his undivided attention, staring at me from across our linoleum divide.

The first glimpse he caught of my body hanging, I wonder, if for a fleeting moment, he thought I’d hung myself. Would that bother him, if I had?

It is a difficult task to decipher his expression when I’m hanging upside down. I climb back up into my swing, lounging sideways. Then, I turn to give him a lazy, sleep-deprived smile. I’m just exhausted, but in this very moment, suspended beneath the bars and having him leer at me… I’m almost content in my little cage.

There’s this look in his dark eyes, and although I’ve seen it on other lecherous men before, I find it endearing coming from him. It’s pure hunger. Maybe he wants to fuck me. Or strangle me. Or both – does it really matter? Is it the action that defines a man, or the emotion behind it?

Schitzo in cell eight is pressed up to the far corner of his glass, with his hands down his pants, pumping himself while looking at the partial view he has of me. I grimace and shift as far as I can out of his view. Mister J gives me a puzzled look, and I point to the cell next to him, and make a wanking gesture with my hand, to which he nods in understanding. Then, he shrugs. “What did you expect?”

And yeah, he’s got a point. I start swinging again, hanging from one leg as I curl myself backwards into a perfect circle, pointing the other leg towards the ground. He claps.

It draws the guard’s attention and they start shouting at me. He’s ousted me. I glare at him.

“What?” he laughs then, as the guards descend the stairs and converge on my cell.

They are perplexed to say the least, I dare say that outlandish displays of aerial exercise in one’s underwear is not covered in their little rule book. Apparently, the protocol for any sort of antisocial, abnormal behaviour includes pointing guns at people, and shouting. “Quinzel, get down from there, now!”

I try my best to look indignant, crossing my arms and pouting. What have I done wrong?

Mister J is laughing hard, now, clutching at his sides as his manic shriek racks his entire body, and bounces off the walls.

“Shut the fuck up!” one of the guard’s shouts at him, and to the Clown’s credit, he does his best effort to try and stifle his amusement.

I feel my own giggles bubbling up through my chest, from the pit of my belly, all the way to my lips, and the light noise filters from my mouth before I can stop it, and it feels wonderful. It’s like talking without actually speaking words. It makes the guards even more uneasy, and brings another bout of laughter from Mister J.

“You’ve got ten seconds, you crazy bitch!” I don’t know his name, but I’m gonna call him Alpha. Typical overbearing squad leader. I’d dealt with his kind before. Stickler for protocol. Doesn’t like it when the status quo changes.

I pull my lips into the biggest frown I can muster, before swinging forward, under, over and bringing my feet back to the ground.

To little benefit.

They come in after that, remove my play swing, take away my foam mattress and leave me sitting on the floor in my knickers, where I suspect I will remain all day, as punishment. Alpha tells me that if I’m going to tear up my jumpsuit and sheets that I will go without. I nod in understanding and move to get up off the floor.

I never seem to learn my lesson.

Alpha mistakes my sudden movement for aggression and responds proportionately. He grabs what I thought to be his sidearm, and shoots me, but I don’t hear a shot. I feel an awful spasming cramping of my chest muscles. It lasts maybe a second, maybe a bit less, then it spreads to my whole body. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t- can’t-

It’s very different from shock therapy.

I don’t feel the probes when they hit my body.

I don’t feel it when I hit the floor, hard.

A part of me is aware that only a couple seconds have passed when the shock stops convulsing through my body, but the agony felt like lifetimes worth. I simply lay on the floor in my underwear, barely aware of my cell door banging shut and that suspended light over my cell being switched off, bathing me in darkness.

Echoes of a writhing pain twist down my spine, my aching muscles protest with every breathe, each tiny little movement, but somehow, I manage to reach for the window, extend my middle finger and press it against the glass to Mister J.

He laughs.

I don’t know what else I expected. 

 

* * *

 

“You want outta here?” he asks me one day, when our scheduled time in the exercise yards coincides.

I roll my eyes and give him a sardonic smile. Duh.

“Let’s make it interesting, then,” he smacks his lips together. “A hundred thousand dollars to whoever gets out first.”

I don’t have a hundred grand to match his. Where the hell did he even get that money?

“No, nonononono,” he tsks, “It’s not my money. It’s leftovers from back when I was ripping off mob dealers… It’s in a wall cavity at my old place, above the toilet,” he says, “379 The Esplanade.”

It’s an intriguing idea. I accept his challenge with the jovial nature it is intended, even though I have no chance of winning. I commit the address to memory, and hope it remains there for future reference.

Or perhaps this is a test, the most dangerous, enigmatic criminal at Arkham, revealing little secrets to his neighbour across the corridor to see if she will tattle.

Maybe there is a bomb in the wall cavity above the toilet at 379 The Esplanade.

It would be _so_ like him.

But, no. I’ll never tell, not unless he specifically asks me to.

The next morning, he escapes his cell but doesn’t break out to freedom.

Instead, he breaks into someone’s office and comes back with a thick folder. He pays me no attention whatsoever and spends the entire afternoon examining its contents.

After a while, I get bored. I’m tempted to make a swing from my new jumpsuit and fresh sheets, but I can’t decide if that compulsion is to get his attention or relieve my boredom.

There’s one way I could get his attention that wouldn’t involve me getting half-naked. I’d laughed aloud the other day. Said hello once. Surely, I can manage a word. One syllable. Just a “Hi,” maybe. Or I could say his name. “Jo-ker” is two syllables though. I’ve taken to calling him Mister J in my head. Maybe I could say just “J?”

I resolve to give it my best shot, but before I even open my mouth, my heart races and I break out into a sweat. The walls are shrinking, the cell is getting darker. I press a hand to the cool safety glass, and it fogs around the edges of my handprint.

“J?” I call quietly, but it comes out a throaty whisper.

I can see him stiffen and he rolls over in his cot to investigate. I’m lucky the basement is quiet this afternoon otherwise he wouldn’t have heard me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” he smirks, flicking his ears.

I drop my head to my knees and cry silently. It took everything I had to get his attention, and he’s just being so blasé about it. Bastard.

“So…” he ignores my obvious distress and opts to change the subject. “Corporal Harleen Frances Quinzel, of the First Division of the United States Marine Corps…”

Oh shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He’s got _my_ file. Son of a bitch. How did he do that? _Why?_

“Born at Gotham General Hospital,” he continues. “Well whaddya know…” he mocks. As he teases, for a moment, he sounds just like my Father, or how I remember him anyway. Deep voice wrapped around those vowels and consonants with that thick Gotham city accent I’d all but forgotten. The tears come in earnest, then. I just glare back at him, it’s all I can manage at this point.

I feel violated. Those private parts of me are being reviewed by a clever maniac. He already has a power over me that frightens me to no end, I don’t need him picking apart my history. He’ll own me by the end of it.

“What’s all these blacked out parts?” he lifts parts of the file so I can see. I recognise the logo in the corner as belonging to the State Department, and it must be a copy of my service file. The blacked-out parts are classified. It’s not state secrets, or vital to national security, or super-secret spy shit. It’s probably just names and places, codenames and coordinates, little morsels of mildly sensitive information you don’t want in the wrong hands.

Like right now. Those are definitely the wrong hands.

“Are they uh, the parts you don’t want to remember, Harls?”

I nod. He’s not right, but he’s not wrong either.

“I ahh, I want you Harley,” he says, and fuck me if he doesn’t say it with a resolve I’ve never heard. “I want you on my _teeeam,”_ he says with a sing-song voice. It sounds like a bad joke, and I’m waiting for the punch line, so I can _not_ laugh at it, but it never comes.

So, I give him the middle finger, instead. He grabs his chest as though I’ve wounded him. “2001 National Gymnastics Championship, Bronze medallist,” he continues, licking his finger to turn the page as he continues through my file. “Well, that must have been a disappointment. To go all the way to the top and not even qualify for the Olympics. Were you just not good enough, or was your heart not in it?”

“She joined the Marines after that,” Doctor Crane joins in. _Fuck._ “Part of my diagnosis was based on the fact that she’s a people-pleaser. Desperate for her parent’s attention. Couldn’t make her mother happy by going to the Olympics, so she tried to please _Daddy_ by fighting for her country.”

“Is that true, Harley?” Joker says, and I feel like I’m being interrogated by the worst sort of detectives/ therapists in the world. “Was he proud when his little girl was shipped off to Iraq?”

“Her father died when she was on tour,” Crane adds. “If my memory serves me well. It’s been a while.”

“Hmm,” Mister J peruses my file. “Your memory serves you well, Scarecrow. Mr Quinzel died in October 2003. How did it feel, Harley? When your daddy died while you were killing other daddies on the other side of the world?”

I curl up under the blanket of my cot and ignore the pair of them, but in such close quarters, it’s nigh impossible, especially when they start talking about my medical discharge. I start to cry, then, because everything went wrong after that.

I only served eighteen months in the Marines after which the government paid for my college education at Gotham City University, something my parents could never afford after they’d spent so much money on my short-lived Gymnastics career and moving cities. I minored in history, because I always liked it. And I majored in psychology because the US Marine Corps forced me into an honourable discharge for failing my psych evaluation. It felt right, that studying the mysteries of the human mind could give me a little closure on the matter, maybe even make a career out of it.

I never got to sit my final exams at GCU.

Emotions were running high as exams drew near. I broke up with Mark.

The police found me at my family home, covered in blood.

I don’t remember what happened.

I just know I didn’t do it, and I couldn’t bring myself to speak a single word in my defence.

Or a single word at all, to anyone, not in years.

Until the Joker.

Mister J.

My J.

“I want you, Harley,” he repeats from across the corridor.

Thoughts run rampant through my head, one after another, the next hitting me like a freight train before I can chase the previous one away. All he has is chunks of my past notated in one godforsaken file. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t own me.

“I want you, Harley,” he says, more to himself, repeating it over and over like a mantra.

_You can’t have me,_ I think in his direction. But maybe he already does own me, he just doesn’t realise it yet. How hooked I am. How he’s the first person I see in the morning and the last person I see at night. How he coaxes sounds and words from my lips where no one else can.

Is it too late for me?

 


	5. Chapter 5

An internal investigation takes place on how private files ended up in the Joker’s hands. It’s very formal and gets the staff on edge. Therapy sessions are cancelled all week. Mister J says it’s because the doctors are too busy trying to hide their skeletons in the closet and hope the investigation doesn’t uncover something nasty.

Doctor Crane in seven and Schitzo in eight thank the Joker for his stunt, and their reprieve from their respective, prying doctors.

Darnell in five doesn’t fare so well. He likes the serenity of repetition, so the change in schedule upsets him.

But those whackos in nine and ten – Inmates 0-800 and 0-801 – Harley and Mister J – we don’t care in the slightest. We make our own fun.

Mister J has this way of manipulating words that makes me laugh.

As hard as I try, I can’t bring myself to hate him. Not even after he’d lain bare my secrets in front of the entire basement. I want to _want_ to kill him, but I can’t, because despite all the nasty shit oozing out the edges of that thick, manila file, he never offered scrutiny, only understanding. Instead of encouraging me to confront my past, to make peace with it – he says I should bury that deep down, forget about it. If it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter.

It’s not about vengeance, or some other base satisfaction. It’s about the action, not the motivation behind it. It’s not about crime and killing and violence, it’s about chaos, in whatever form it comes in.

He’s a lunatic.

And yet his philosophy makes some fucked-up kind of sense.

He tells me about the Batman.

He tells me about Gotham’s fallen district attorney, Harvey Dent – he tells me about the lies and the futility and the fear.

He tells me that trying to blow up the ferries had been too grand a gesture, too soon after the hospital. That it had been much more fun teetering on the edge of anarchy without actually taking the leap. He describes the feeling as euphoric, having the power to push people beyond reason.

Is that what he’s doing to me? Manipulating me to a point where reason doesn’t exist?

The investigation takes four days, and on the fifth day, I have a new therapist, Doctor Wright.

He’s an older, olive-skinned man, of maybe part Asian or Indonesian descent with black hair streaked with grey, with inquisitive eyes set in a face with thin eyebrows, angled jaw with a stern frown. It only takes one session for me to learn he is treating both myself and the Joker and thus ascertain his intentions.

We’re exclusive, you see, and he wants to get inside our heads.

It’s all a big joke.

So I give Doctor Wright the warm welcome he deserves, just to fuck with him, and I go against all of the notes left by my previous therapist, Doctor Leland, about my reclusive, inexpressive nature.

I give him a big smile when he’s polite, I frown when he says things I should be sad about, and I look confused when he talks about Mister J. I cry when he talks about my family, I nod when he asks if I’m sorry. And when he asks me about killing the red-haired nurse, I try to tell him it wasn’t me. The Doctors love denial, it’s like a drug to them, it makes them think they’re gaining insight.

Maybe it makes me an emotional whore, selling my excitements and sorrows, however fake, for material gain. I don’t care. It certainly hadn’t been my intention when I started to respond to Doctor Wright’s therapy, but I certainly appreciated the rewards, nonetheless, namely the daily time I get in the exercise yard with Mister J.

The fence between us still remains, for obvious reasons, and I imagine that Doctor Wright is sitting at a desk somewhere, looking at us from behind the security cameras, recording our interactions for later psycho-analysis.

“Hiya Harls,” Mister J greets, and I run to the fence gleefully, bringing my fingertips to meet his through the tight-wound security mesh. It’s the closest we get to holding hands. “Have you been a good girl?”

What constitutes a _good girl,_ in his book?

“Doc Wright tells me you’re uh… impressionable,” he licks his lips and dips his head down towards me. “Bet he thinks I’m a bad influence.”

I nod, because _there’s_ an understatement if ever I heard one.

“He’s got it wrong, though,” he adds. “It’s you who’s a bad influence on poor little me.”

Yeah, sure.

“I could have escaped weeks ago,” he mutters then, his dark eyes peering down at me curiously.

Then why haven’t you?

He licks his lips and remains infuriatingly silent, not answering the question I can’t vocalise. Perhaps it doesn’t need saying.

I step closer to the fence, pressing myself up against it, and he leans down to meet my face, his breath warm on my face. He smells like a combination of soap, industrial-strength laundry detergent, and sweat. We all smell the same here, but beneath it, in undertones, there’s something alluring, something masculine and altogether attractive about him. Maybe it’s my hormones going into hyperdrive, parts of my biology deprived of pleasure for so long, and now they’re awake.

I’ve been staring at his lips for a long time, moist and plump between his puckered scars, and his tongue flicks out habitually, and he dips his head towards me, dark eyes trying to catch mine. “Earth to Harley,” he says. “You still in there?”

I look up at him and nod.

“Good girl.”

The demeaning, repetitive label should repulse me, but it doesn’t. Coming from him, it’s more endearing than anything else. His voice takes a gravelly, possessive tone when he does that, and it gives me anticipatory shivers. The hairs on my arms prickle as my skin erupts into gooseflesh, and my breath hitches when his lips part slowly in abject wonder.

“You’re in deep now, you know that, right?” he asks gently, and he looks up to the vast expanse of fence above us, muttering incomprehensibly. I think the question might have been for himself, not me, and he’s answering himself, too. Ever the cliché, they say the first sign of madness is talking to yourself, and the second is answering yourself too. I wonder if he realises. I wonder if he cares.

I wonder if he fantasises about me as much as I do about him. I wonder if it’s a game, no, a joke, a big joke to him where he can lull me into a false sense of rapport, then strangle me to death. I amuse and fascinate him – this I know – he’s told me so – but what happens if I stop being funny or interesting, or what happens if the idea of my demise is more pleasing than the living, breathing presence I currently offer?

“I can see the little cogs in your brain working overtime,” he states flatly. “There’s even smoke coming out your ears.”

Funny man.

“What’re you thinkin’ so hard about?” he cocks his head to the side in fascination.

I narrow my eyes, lick my lips and stare at him square on. _Guess, Mister J._

“I’m flattered, Harls, but uhh, you’re not my _type.”_

I curl my fist, extend my middle finger, and press it to fence, right in his face.

He snorts, “that’s getting old, kitten.” Then he pokes his tongue through the mesh and licks my knuckles sloppily, with an exaggerated “laaah.”

_Ew._ I wipe his saliva on my jumpsuit leg and pull a face of disgust, to which he lets out a whoop of laughter that echoes over the grounds. I can hear several cries in the distance, and I know his shrill cackle has carried on the wind to some fragile ears.

I turn and walk with pointed toes towards the pull up bars for some exercise and choose to ignore him for the rest of our half hour together. He wanders around his side of the exercise yard, and never takes his eyes off me. During one spared glance I find him sitting on the edge of the bench seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands pressed together. His eyes are black holes pulling me in, even with so much distance between us. He likes to watch me. I’m just not sure if I’m an acrobat at the circus for his entertainment, or if I’m the so-called Clown’s next victim. I know which I’d prefer to be, but assuming it’s not drawn-out or painful, I’m not so disinclined towards the latter, either. But then again, neither options are necessarily mutually exclusive. I’m something coveted, a plaything maybe. But a small part of me, the one that finds him irresistible, wishes he would break me out of this mundane existence, and we’d go driving off into the sunset together.

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Alpha-guard – the big testosterone factory who removed my play swing, shot me with a taser gun and made me sit in my underwear all day – has the privilege of escorting me back to my cell. I usually get two guards, but I figure he makes up the body mass of two, so it makes little difference. There’s something off about him, though. There’s a smudge on his lips, imperceptible but to my trained eye – when you see the same walls, the same floors, and the same people every day, you notice the little changes. He’s gripping me by the arm and holding me closer to his body than I find comfortable. He barks some harsh orders at the orderlies who try to step into the elevator with us, and he slams his finger on the button harder than usual, leaving the two of us alone in the car headed back towards the basement.

“We have a mutual friend,” he says, releasing me from his bruising grip. I look up at him questioningly and find his usually steely-eyed gaze bloodshot and wary. He looks severely traumatised or high. “Pam said to take this with your dinner, and go straight to sleep, and she’ll pick you up in the morning.”

_Pam._ He hands me a tiny plastic bag with a red capsule in it. Red. _Red!_

“Anything else?” I ask, my voice a hoarse, cracked whisper from disuse. I can feel my heart thumping against my ribs, but instead of panic it’s anticipation. Adrenaline.

Alpha’s so fucking wasted he doesn’t even blink an eye at my words, the words coming from the usually mute, criminally insane girl. He shakes his head. “No, that about covers it.” He sniffs then, and blinks hard a few times.

Despite his size, I could probably do away with him in this state, but I tuck the bagged pill into my bra and decide against it. If Pammy’s planned my jailbreak so elaborately, I’m not about to ruin her plans.

He escorts me back to my cell, and like a well-trained zoo animal, I stride inside my cage, and he shuts the door. I hope that’s the last time I have to listen to that door closing me inside.

The Joker enters his cell not long after, and I spend some time staring lazily at him, memorizing the puckered, knotted scars on his face, the curve of his eyebrows as he arches one, looking at me strangely, the way his unruly curls fall over his face in lieu of product to hold it back – the way his dark eyes almost always know what I’m thinking.

_“What’s wrong?”_ he mouths at me, brows furrowed.

I can hear the roll of the dinner cart coming down the hallway, and I retrieve the pill from my bra, and put it in my mouth. He sees it, and stands quickly, palms pressed against the glass of his cell, and he’s shaking his head, muttering. I can just hear him “No, no nonononono,” he says quietly. I take the plastic cup of water from my desk. “Harley,” he growls dangerously.

I swallow the pill, and take the tiny plastic packet it came in, and flush it down the toilet.

It takes the orderlies several minutes to park the cart and prepare the trays.

They come into my cell first, like usual, and I stand at the ready, hands against the glass, legs spread, and the guards come in for the usual frisk and the orderlies bring my dinner and my pills. I hide them under my tongue and spit them out later. They don’t even bother checking because I’ve never given them any trouble taking my meds.

Mister J glares the whole time, teeth bared. He’s _pissed._ When they leave my cell, I press my lips to the glass, giving him a goodbye kiss, a little wave and I turn to eat my dinner. It’s meatloaf and steamed vegetables tonight. I eat dinner, as instructed, before I can feel the little red pill start to take effect. A sedative – go figure. I feel dizzy and pleasant, and my lips, fingers and toes feel tingly. I can hear Mister J somewhere far away, calling my name, as I stumble towards my cot, and curl up on the mattress. His voice sounds distorted and hilarious. I can hear a high-pitched noise, a giggling echoing off the walls of my cell, and it takes me a moment to realise I’m laughing, aloud. It’s strange and liberating, and as I start to lose feeling in my limbs, I wonder if Pammy’s homemade pill might kill me or not. I doubt she’s had the time or resources to test it.

_“Whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you… stranger,”_ I remember Mister J telling me that once. It’s the last thing I think of before darkness takes me.

* * *

 

 

He’d been tossing around all night, unable to switch his mind off. He would lie down and chase his thoughts through the darkness, only to roll out of his cot and pace the fourteen-foot square cell. He would go to the sink and wet his hair, to slick it back out of his face, but later it would just dry and be as curly and annoying as ever. He didn’t know why, couldn’t find reason for it, but he simply could not get Harley off his mind. She had been at the forefront of his thoughts since the day he’d seen her half-naked and swinging in her cell – no, since she’d done cartwheels in the exercise yard. No, no, no, since she’d first flipped him off, when he’d made fun of her being mute. Or maybe from the moment she’d first spoke to him, her pathetic little ‘hello’ in the elevator. Since they’d started one-sided conversations between glass, between fences. Since he’d asked if he could call her Harley and she’d acquiesced. Since she’d killed a nurse to come back to the basement. Since he’d read her file and found out all those little puzzle pieces that she couldn’t – wouldn’t – tell him.

Well, all those moments aside, he couldn’t get her out of his head tonight. Not since she’d been staring at him most of the afternoon, sad and resolute. Since she’d popped that unknown pill she’d pulled from god-knows-where. Since she’d given him a little kiss, leaving a little lip-shaped smudge on the glass, between the handprints where she stood twice daily for the routine pat-down.

“Harley, Harley, Harley- harleyharleyharleyharley,” he kept saying to himself over and over, since she’d collapsed into her cot and the lights had since gone out. “I want you on my _teeeeaaam._ ”

He’d told her once, if not a thousand times. She’d listened to him. She’d looked at him like no one had in a long time, actually seeing him, for what he was, inside. She’d laughed at his jokes, even, no _especially_ the bad ones. She’d flipped him off when he was rude, she’d laughed, she’d _listened._

All this time, and he’d forgotten what it like to have someone listen. People could hear, but they so rarely listened and understood what he’d been trying to tell them, in his own eccentric, explosive kind of way.

He could have broken out weeks ago. There’d been plenty of opportunities. He could have started a fight, ended up in the infirmary where he could dress up like a doctor or a nurse and walk out the staff entrance. But he couldn’t bear to leave Harley behind. That had been the predicament. How to escape _with_ Harley?

She’d have come, of course, he knows she would have. And if she didn’t, well, he’d improvise.

He’d managed to get a swipe card to escape, but he’d picked the wrong time of day to try it. He’d gotten as far as the doctor’s offices, and when he had no hope of getting further without getting caught, he’d opted for stealing Harley’s file instead for a little light reading. And what fun that had been. To think, if he’d actually escaped that day, all those details and secrets he might have missed.

He’s half asleep, and lost in thought when the lights flicker on, and the sound of the breakfast cart comes rolling down the corridor.

He stands near the glass at the ready, but Harley lies dangerously still in her cot, and doesn’t move at all. In the new light, he can see her small form, still, uncovered, and unmoving. Not a twitch nor breath. He waits anxiously, as the guards approach her cell.

“Quinzel,” one of the muscly female guards enters cell 9 with her hand clutching her nightstick at her waist, unsettled by the situation. Each morning, Harley had stood in position before they’d had to tell her, the good girl that she is. Not today, though.

“She’s not moving,” butch states.

“Move,” the orderly pushes past and carefully approaches Harley’s bedside. “She’s not breathing.”

“Fuck,” Joker bows his head towards his chest. So much for _that._

He stands, gazing forlornly at the cell opposite, as the orderly explains she’s not breathing and there’s no pulse. They call for a gurney. They say there’s no point in CPR, the body’s stone cold, Harley’s been dead for hours. He watches as they load her tiny form onto the gurney, one pale arm dangling, her head lolling to the side to greet him with her blue lips slightly agape, hair mussed, and eyes closed.

_“I want you on my teeeeaaam,”_ he’d said.

But perhaps what he’d hoped for, was that they could have been a team of just two. He imagined what he could do with the tiny, cartwheeling, flipping, _Harlequin._ He’d dress her up and paint her face. He’d put a gun in one of her hands, a knife in the other and together they’d pull the city apart and put it back together all wrong.

Too late now. So much for _that._

On the plus side, he’s just found a whole lot of incentive for escaping.

 


	6. Chapter 6

I start to dream of things that I had forgotten.

Repressed.

Where my past had been fragmented and uncertain, now it feels clear. Nothing like a dose of reality to water down the hallucinations, huh? I failed at gymnastics because I’d been more interested in my childhood sweetheart, Mark, than I had been in training, especially the night before the big comp. The day my Daddy died, I’d been halfway around the world with a rifle in my hands and war paint on my face. The day I got my medical discharge from the services, it was because I’d failed my psych eval. Before I was due to sit my exams at GCU, I broke up with Mark, because he had a verbally abusive dark side that I didn’t have the emotional capacity to handle at the time.

The day my family were murdered, I walked in the back door of Mom’s house and slipped over in a pool of her blood. Mark did it. He came back downstairs after hearing me fall and cry out. He came at me with the meat cleaver then, and the soldier in me retaliated, first in self-defence, then grief-stricken rage as I wrestled it off him and buried it in his skull. 

Survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed. They blamed me for the whole thing, and I didn’t have the balls or sound mind to defend myself. I lost my voice, forgot how to use it, and it landed me an insanity plea, and a nice padded cell in Arkham.

Maybe if the justice system hadn’t been so corrupt. Maybe if my defence attorney hadn’t been so incompetent. Maybe if the DA didn’t want the whole thing swept under the rug so close to the elections. Maybe if I was anywhere but Gotham.

I’ve never felt so alone. I lost sight of everything. I couldn’t remember what happened or why. And I’m ashamed to admit I forgot about my best friend, Pamela Isley.

My Pammy.

Red.

She’s been there the whole time. Through thick and thin. She was my best friend in high school. She had gone to every single one of my gymnastics comps. She was there when I got shipped overseas, and she was there when I came back. We went to college together, but she studied botany, plant science and microbiology. She was there when they declared me unfit to stand trial. She visited every week in those first few years but stopped.

She said she needed to finish her PhD. Said she was coming back for me, that she would never let me go.

I’d forgotten all about that promise.

I wake up and feel incredibly warm. I try to move and feel a pinch at the crook of my elbow. Sitting up, I gently remove the IV from my arm, letting droplets of blood fall onto the sheets. The bag is almost empty anyway and I really have to pee. My eyes adjust to the soft light of the room and I see an open door with a tiled interior. I find the toilet and sit down to relieve myself. I lean to the side, pressing my sweaty forehead to the cool tiles, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light, and my incredibly full bladder takes its time to completely empty. After a minute, the cramping stops, and peeing has just never felt so refreshing.

“You gonna sit there all day, Harl?”

I look up, and smile. There’s Pam. She’s standing in the doorway, dressed in a black pencil skirt, green silk blouse, shiny heels. Her thick red hair is pulled back into a tight bun and she sports a pair of reading glasses pushed up onto her crown. Something’s different through, since the last time I’d seen her. It’s the lipstick. It’s almost black, with a green tinge in the bathroom’s stark white lighting.

Then I look down at myself and I can feel my face go warm. I’m pasty, thin, bruised, and stark naked, perched on the toilet with long pale tresses falling like wet seaweed over my shoulders and touching the tiled floor, from my sideways, hunched over position on my porcelain throne. But Pammy’s like my sister – and we don’t really have boundaries.

“Still not talking?” she guesses. I nod sheepishly. “Why don’t you shower and afterwards I’ll do your hair?” I nod again, yes.

She leaves and shuts the bathroom door behind her, leaving me alone in the pale room. I reach for the toilet roll, and stop for several minutes to appreciate the softened, three-ply textured paper between my fingers, in all its white, leafy-patterned glory. I use more sheets than necessary, and wipe twice, once for practicality, and again just for the sheer pleasure.

I pointedly ignore my reflection as I pass the mirror towards the shower. I turn it on the hottest setting, but find it too hot, and end up turning it down a little. It’s so hot, high-pressured, and wonderful it turns my skin pink and works out the stiffness through my back. If I thought soft toilet paper was the height of pleasure, it’s nothing compared to a long, hot shower. Pam’s left me herbal-scented organic soap, shampoo and conditioner, and a razor. I wash my hair twice and let the conditioner soak in while I shave my legs, armpits, bikini line and even the tiny little hairs on my big toes, for good measure. The hot water is all gone by the time I’m done, and I begrudgingly step out of the shower, on shaky legs, and retrieve a fresh towel from the rail. It’s big, fluffy, white, and so fucking soft it surely must be a dream. The red pill killed me, and heaven is a paradise with extra-thick, super-soft toilet paper and never-ending hot showers with scented soaps, and soft towels.

Pam doesn’t ask if I’m decent, before she walks in, with a pair of scissors in hand.

“I’ll let it slide this time, Harley,” she starts, “But from now on I expect you to keep showers to three minutes, okay?”

No, not heaven. Still at Arkham, just with nicer toiletries.

“Don’t give me that look. This isn’t a wasteful household. I grow my own vegetables, I use a greywater system, we don’t use plastics or chemicals in the house, and I won’t have you wasting water.”

Oh that’s right. Pam’s a bit of an environmentalist.

Just like the Pope’s a little religious.

Or the Joker’s a little wayward.

I hold back a derisive snort, swallow my pride, and I reach for Pam’s hand with a firm squeeze and a teary smile.

“You’re welcome.”

_How?_ I ask silently.

She brings a stool into the bathroom and gestures for me to sit, so she can cut my hair while she explains.

“I’ve been working on plant-based toxins, and I was able to synthesise a toxin that could lower your body temperature and slow your heart rate to only a few beats per minute. They thought you’d died in your sleep, and I picked you up from the morgue later that morning,” _snip, snip, snip,_ “administered the anti-toxin, gave you an IV to combat dehydration, and I gave you a stimulant not long ago to wake you up.”

You’re brilliant, Red, you really are.

“I know, I’m good. It could have killed you but knowing what they were doing to you in Arkham, I figured you’d be willing to take the risk.” _Snip, snip._

She knows me well.

“And the best part is, there’s witnesses and a paper trail that says you’re dead. Nobody’s going to come looking for you, Harl. It’s just us now. Like old times.”

I grab her hand to halt her cutting and stand to envelop her in a bear hug.

“I missed you, too,” she says, before she makes me sit back down so she can finish with my hair.

_There’s witnesses and a paper trail that says you’re dead._

Witnesses.

The Joker thinks I’m dead.

I can imagine his sour face as they found me the next morning, seemingly dead. Did I look dead? Was my body cold, my lips blue? Was he angry at me, for taking the ‘cowards’ way out? Does he care? Why do _I_ care? Does it matter?

“What are you thinking so hard about?” Pam asks, as she places the scissors down, and ruffles my shoulder-length damp tresses to loosen any stray hairs. I look down and find blonde strands everywhere, clumped and damp, all around me like dead, albino, headless serpents.

I shrug, before standing to check out my new look in the mirror. Honestly, I look as undead as ever, but my hair looks neater and I feel clean, properly clean for the first time in a long time. Also my head feels less fuzzy, not only does my past seem more cohesive, but my train of thought seems to be plodding along at regular pace, instead of stopping and changing direction every few seconds. I feel – almost, _normal._

Guess they had me _really_ doped up at Arkham. Couldn’t have the psycho in cell 9 too sharp and aware of her surroundings. God forbid she attacked someone, or you know, was cognizant enough to respond to therapy. Fucking assholes.

Red and I end up sharing her wardrobe. She insists she was hesitant to buy me clothes without knowing if her scheme would go according to plan. I choose sweatpants, because they have a drawstring, I can pull the drawstring tight over my too-thin hips and singlet tops because it just feels good, and hey – who do I need to look good for, anyway?

She’s a vegetarian, but she’s lenient enough to order me beef and chicken dishes from nearby local places. I’m malnourished and a bit emaciated and she knows it. I spend most of my days reading from her collection of trashy romance novels, watching the news, eating, showering, and sleeping. In the mornings, I run for several miles on her treadmill in the living room. And in the evening, I do yoga on the roof. Upstairs she has a greenhouse full of unique plants, some of which are highly poisonous, and volatile but to which I’m immune thanks to Doctor Isley’s multi-function antitoxin. Beyond the greenhouse, is a paved area between the skylight above her living room, and the rooftop air conditioner and water heater. It’s a fourteen-foot square of space, and it’s all mine. Pam’s apartment sits right on a T-intersection, giving me a rooftop view of second street, that runs in a straight line for miles, where brownstones turn into skyscrapers, lights and cars twinkling all the way to downtown Gotham. And it’s the right time of year, where the sun sets at just the right spot, sending golden waves of light down the expressway, right to my rooftop, which I greet with a warrior pose.

I’m free.

* * *

 

The breaking news bulletin the next morning headlines with “Joker Escapes Arkham Asylum.”

He could have broken out months ago.

But I guess when his little Harley died, bereft of the object of his obsession or amusement or whatever, he’d finally crafted and executed his own escape.

Good for him.

He never strays far from my thoughts, but that is where I’d like him to stay.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.   
> Or not. Maybe. I haven't decided yet if there will be more adventures for Harls and Mister J.   
> But this is all for now.   
> Thank you everyone for the kudos and kind words of encouragement.


End file.
